Your Health: Do Diet Pills Really Work?

Published November 6th, 2013

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Pills are supposed to make you feel better, but this is about as far from a cure as you can imagine. The US Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control are investigating whether a weight loss drug is to blame for several cases of acute hepatitis, liver failer, and one death.

Despite many of the known risks, new products come on the market every year, adding to a multibillion dollar diet industry.

Supplements, pills, shakes, and many other products all promise to be the one that really works.

With an estimated 150-million American adults overweight or obese, it's no surprise anything that promises weight loss would see sales.

We spoke with Dr. Amelia Davis, the Medical Director of the Adult Eating Disorder and Obesity Program at UF Health, about the health risks posed by many of these so-called weight loss drugs.

"the FDA doesn't regulate them as well as they do for prescription medications," Davis says.

Not only are you getting a potentially unsafe product, over-the-counter weight loss drugs can also impact your prescription medication.

"For someone who is obese and has multiple medical conditions, they might be on lots of different medications," Davis says, "so to add herbal supplements - or something where we don't know what's in them - could make things a little scary."